I'm afraid your logic is so far from reality that I'm not sure itcan be called back. The Suits as you call them have NOT asked for moreviolence or action in the show. In fact, as reported in the trades andelsewhere, they have specifically asked for more character stuff and lessviolence. (Basically...we're telling the story we're telling, and we werealready starting to focus in on our characters, and we're doing more ofthat in year two, but we're not sacrificing action, which I happen tolike.)

Re: "...the morality of being entertained by murder and violence,"I'm sorry, but this doesn't happen on television. People are entertainedby *representations* or *illusions* of those elements. No one on B5 hasever been murdered or treated violently. This is a fiction-based series.There's a difference.

I happen to feel strongly that the link between violence in thestreets and violence in TV/movies is hugely exaggerated by people whothink it's much easier to deal with the *picture* of the problem than itis to deal with the *problem*. It's simpler to censor a TV show than itis to clean up the streets, provide jobs, properly fund schools, put morepolice on the streets, provide opportunities for young kids and get thehard drugs out of the community.

Frank, if you took *every* show with even a modicum of action offthe air tomorrow...and left it off for seven days...there would not beone less murder in South Central Los Angeles, or any of our other majorcities. Not one. Because television isn't the problem. Every fewyears, the trendoids and the politicos decide that comic books are theproblem, or movies are the problem, or TV is the problem...but thereality is that the PROBLEM is the problme, not the picture of the problem.

Not long ago, here in LA, a Santa Monica based anti-violence groupwent out to a video store which had a big honking picture of a gun in itsfront window, and picketed it. Half a block away was a GUN SHOP. Butthey didn't picket that, they picketed the poster. They focused on thepicture of the problem, not the problem.

For me, action is a necessary component of drama. Meaning sometimespeople get hurt. You say, "ST expressed intelligence and humanism," andmy only reply -- and I mean no offense to the hard-core ST fans, of whichyou are clearly one -- oftentimes it simply bored me to *tears*. Nothingwas really ever at stake. Everything was sanitized.

I feel that B5 expresses just as much intelligence and humanism asany other show, including ST. Maybe more. And I'll tell you why. Inthe ST:TNG universe, every human is perfect...no inner doubts, no violenttendencies, they're *genetically engineered that way*. That's what theyhave said. There's no quandry, no sense of questioning what should bedone, they don't have to overcome, they have already done so.

So you can look at that show, and decide, "Well, I guess humanity isdoomed to be violent until we can genetically engineer ourselves to beotherwise." B5 humans aren't perfect. They're flawed and scared andtempted by violence. They're just like us. And though their record isn'tperfect, they frequently find ways to solve problems WITHOUT violence. Ithink this is *profoundly* more relevant and a stronger message to send,that we can do it *today*. We have the same problems they have, and ifthey can deal with it, maybe we can.

It is one thing to say, "Mankind has no further problems, no doubts,no insecurities," and another to say, "Here are some demonstrations ofways we can overcome our problems, doubts and insecurities." Someonehere recently posted a message "Everything I Need To Know In Life ILearned in Babylon 5." I was really rather astonished to read it, becauseit took all the principles we've expressed in the show, or many of them,and put them all in one place...the capacity for self-sacrifice being oneof the principles of sentient life...that it is better to find somethingworth living for than something worth dying for...on and on and on.

Humanism does not mean turning a blind eye to our problems; it meanstrying to elevate humanity from *inside*. Intelligence doesn't mean wesimply assume all of our problems have been solved by genetic engineering,which removes free will, just wipe the slate clean...it means that we needto see alternates and means of solving problems now.

Could Picard ever be tempted to do something illegal? No. Couldsome of our characters? Yes. In the case of Picard, it's a no brainer.In the case of a B5 character, we would see the struggle, the back andforth, and maybe it would be done, maybe it wouldn't, but there would bea REASON for it. We see the process. And I for one find that eminentlymore interesting.

Having action or make-believe violence in a show doesn't make itany less intelligent or humanistic than any other show. When you starttalking like that it's all kneejerk cliches and fuzzy thinking. If itwere true, then none of Shakespeare's dramas would have survived over thelast several hundred years, and they *drip* with spilled blood.

Finally, I point you to two things: 1) the original Star Trek, w hereKirk says that yes, humans are a violent lot, we can and do kill; but wecan decide, now and then, that we will not kill *today*. That attitudeis very much in line with B5. So your problem isn't just with us, it'swith TOS as well. 2) I refer you to a short story by Mark Twain called"The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg." I won't tell you much more here thanto read it. It should be self-explanatory.